Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

A Not So Happy Fourth of July

By Alan
Caruba

Normally
Americans celebrate the Fourth of July as the happy anniversary of the birth of
the nation with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. In
2013, our happiness is muted by fears of eroding freedoms; corrupt and incompetent governance.

The men
who signed the document had struggled to reach some accommodation with England
for many years until the arrogance and continuing taxation of the colonies left
them no alternative than to “dissolve the political bonds which have connected
them with another.”

When that
effort failed they fought our Revolution over the course of eight years until
the king and parliament concluded they could not retain the American colonies.
Rarely mentioned in the history books was the large portion of colonists, known
as Tories, who did not want to sever the connection. It is worth noting that
the Revolution began when British troops moved to seize American arms in
Concord, Massachusetts, and were met by militias there and in Lexington.

We
celebrate the holiday in 2013 in a nation sharply divided between those who
wish to retain and maintain the traditional and political values of
America—conservatives—and the liberals who want to adopt the failed socialist
systems of Europe and elsewhere. Even the former Soviet Union collapsed under
the dead weight of communism. Even China, though politically communist, has
adopted the capitalist system.

The
transformation of today’s America from one whose values are enshrined in the
Constitution and, in particular, the Bill of Rights, did not occur overnight.
It began largely in the last century as “progressive” ideas were embraced. The
educational system was transformed by progressives such as John Dewey. The rise
of the union movement transformed the relationship between employer and
employees; unions have since fallen on hard times, but still solidly support
liberal candidates for office.

For the
duration of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, from the end of World War Two
in 1945 until its end in 1991, progressives mocked the notion that the U.S.
government was filled with Soviet agents-of-influence and spies. Historians
have since documented this.

Liberals
see the values of the 1950s and earlier as “old-fashioned” and “out of date.” They welcome
the attack on traditional marriage—in place for thousands of years by all
faiths—that has resulted in the legalization of same-sex marriage in many states.
They defend abortion even though it has killed an entire generation of
Americans in the womb. These changes did not and do reflect the will of the
people, but rather the result of Supreme Court decisions, of law suits that ignore the will of the people.

A nation
built on welcoming immigrants who happily left Europe and other former
homelands to seek real opportunity here is now led by politicians unwilling to
acknowledge that the 1986 effort at immigration reform failed to secure the
southern border, incentivized illegal immigration, and has resulted in an
estimated eleven million “undocumented” aliens competing for jobs and benefits
that rightfully should belong to native-born and naturalized Americans.

As
Americans celebrate the Fourth of July in 2013, many are unaware that Obamacare
is the law of the land. It is the nationalization of what was regarded as the
finest health care system in the world and it is filled with hidden taxes,
fines, the insertion of the government between patients and their physicians,
and it will wreak havoc on the nation’s economy, increasing unemployment,
impacting small businesses and large. Nationalization is socialism!

The
protests against Obamacare gave rise to the Tea Party movement and a recent
Rasmussen poll found that “26% of Obama supporters view the Tea Party as the
nation’s top terror threat.” A slim majority, 51%, of likely voters, however, still
regard radical Muslims to be the biggest threat.

Even more
ominous is news that the U.S. agency, FEMA, has signed an agreement with the
Russian Emergency Situations Ministry to provide “security at mass events.” The
notion of Russian troops on U.S. soil to control Americans is an abomination.
We fought a Revolution when the British did this following the Boston Tea
Party.

The
Founding Fathers wanted limited government and the Constitution is designed to
create checks and balances so that no one element, the executive, Congress, or
the judiciary, can act without the ability of Americans to reverse decisions
with which they disagree. Americans demanded and got the repeal of Prohibition
and they can do the same for Obamacare.

On this
Fourth of July we have been witness to the failed policies of the President
elected in 2008 and again in 2012. His conduct is more that of a monarch or
dictator, indifferent and resentful of the judiciary and of Congress. He is
surrounded by appointees who oversee elements of the government that
increasingly give evidence of seeing Americans as “the enemy.”

On this
Fourth of July, scandals abound and remain to be investigated, from “Fast and
Furious” a gun-running scheme from within the Department of Justice to the
attack on September 11, 2012 on our ambassador to Libya who died in Benghazi
along with three other brave Americans. The cover-up continues.

We are
learning that the Internal Revenue Service was corrupted by his administration
to become an agency targeting conservative organizations in ways that denied
them the opportunity to raise financial support. We have learned that the
agencies intended to protect us have virtually unlimited capacity to monitor
and retain all our electronic communications. The National Defense
Authorization Act allows the government the right to arrest and detain any
American without a trial. It must be repealed!

Recently
the President gave a speech in which he said that “climate change” was the
greatest threat to the nation and announced new policies to limit the amount of
carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere. This is so utterly absurd that
it defies the evidence of an Earth that continues to cool over the period of
the last seventeen years. It ignores the fact that CO2 plays no role in climate
change and has actually increased
during the time the Earth has been cooling.
This is one more diversion from the very real threats to the
Constitution and our freedoms.

We have a Congress
now that routinely passes bills exceeding a thousand to two thousand pages,
often without reading them. The corruption this implies is a threat to the
future of the nation.

The
government the Founding Fathers feared would happen is the government we now
have.

2 comments:

The only way the constitutional issue between We The People and the federal government can be settled is by revolution.

No doubt I will accused of being "bloody minded" and wishing for mega deaths and vast property damage; but when elections, demonstrations and other acts of lawful redress fail, the only answer is "iron and blood."

I understand that Glenn Beck and other Tea Party patriots will soon launch acts of civil disobedience - their model being MLK and the 1960s civil rights struggle.

I wish them well and will I support them; however, the times are different - and we have a Regime in power that is willing to use all the repressive techniques - even the importation of foreign soldiers - to stay in power.

The endgame is revolution, civil war, insurrection, call it what you will, because the patriot side stands for the liberty and the traitor side stands for tyranny.

The guy in the White House(Happy the Clown)seems to be oblivious to conservatives wants and needs. Ron Barbour touched on what needs to be done. A nice peaceful demonstration at Happys' front door could do the trick. Set the date and I'm in.

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.